The Starting Eleven - Thoughts and Opinions

Great goalscorers - like Henry and Van Persie - depend more on guile and smarts than the pure power needed to fight for position in the penalty box at a corner. Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger have both recognized that a well-delivered corner is just as important to scoring as the person who gets on the end of it.

Someone is watching

From time to time, you see something that makes you wonder how a player ever managed to make it to the top of the sport. On Saturday against Arsenal, Fulham left back John Arne Riise twice committed the equivalent of a mortal sin.

On both occassions in the first half, Fulham was awarded a throw in on the left side of their defence about 30 yards from their goal. Both times Riise took the throw and hurled the ball square across the pitch to a teammate in the middle of the field.

Both times, he got away with a manoeuvre that would turn any self respecting youth coach apoplectic.

Who could say no

We are now told that the cost of Brazil hosting the 2014 World Cup has increased from $11.58B to $13.28B. It seems like a lot of money to host a soccer tournament but it also costs a lot to host something like the Olympics. However, nobody has ever come up with a method of truly costing major events.

Politicians and bureaucrats use events like the World Cup and the Olympics to expedite funding for projects that otherwise might never be approved. Attach "World Cup" or "Olympics" to a spending request and it is going to have a lot less scrutiny.

The increase in Brazil's World Cup spending has been put down to increased costs for stadia and airports. A case for including stadia costs as part of World Cup costs can be made but airports?

At some point Brazil was going to have to upgrade its transportation infrastructure so it seems disingenuous to claim that airports are being expanded and upgraded just on account of the 2014 World Cup.

Of course, if the politicians cannot stuff things into the Brazil 2014 budget they will get a second chance with the summer Olympics in Rio two years later.